For a fleeting moment he had a vision of Marcia’s face as he had last seen it. He expected the stuff behind the forehead of the vision to ooze from the eyes in black tears.
He passed a slot-like store that said TATTOOING, then a jumbled window with three dingy gilt balls over head. In front of it lounged two figures of men in dark slickers. They somehow stood out from the other dreary automatons.
As he crossed the street, a taxicab drew up ahead of him at a dull-windowed drugstore. The fat figure of the driver squeezed out and hurried inside. As Carr passed the drugstore, he noticed him dialing at an open phone. A line of dirty collar was creased between greasy-coated bulky shoulders and thick red neck. He heard the motor softly chugging.
Ahead lights thinned, sidewalks became emptier, as South State approached the black veil of the railway yards. He passed the figure of a woman. The face was shadowed by an awning, but he could see the shoulder-length hair, the glossy black dress tight over the hips and thighs, and the long bare legs.
He passed a sign that read: IDENTIFICATION PHOTOS AT ALL HOURS. He passed a black-windowed bar that said: CONTINUOUS ENTERTAINMENT.
He thought: I will search for Jane forever and never find her. I will search for Jane…
Carr stopped.
…I will search for Jane…
Carr turned around.
No, it couldn’t be, he thought. This one’s hair is blonde, and the hips wing commonly in the tight black dress.
But if he disregarded those two things…
The hair had been unevenly blonde. It could be, undoubtedly was, bleached.
The walk could be assumed.
He was beginning to think it was Jane.
Just then his glance flickered beyond the shoulder-brushing blonde hair.
A long black convertible drew up to the curb just this side of the taxi, parking the wrong way. Out of it stepped the handless man.
On the other side of the street, just opposite the girl in black, stood Miss Hackman. She was wearing a green sports suit and hat. She glanced quickly both ways, then started across.
Halfway between Carr and the girl in black, Mr. Wilson stepped out of a dark doorway.
Carr felt as if his heart were being squeezed. This was the finish, he thought. The end of Jane’s long, terrified flight. The kill.
Unless…
The three pursuers closed in slowly, confidently The girl in black didn’t turn or stop, but she seemed to slow down just a trifle.
Unless something happened to convince them that he and Jane were automatons like the rest. Unless he and Jane could put on an act that would deceive them.
It could be done. They’d always been doubtful about Jane.
But she couldn’t do it alone. She couldn’t put on an act by herself. But with him…
The three figures continued to close in. Miss Hackman was smiling.
Carr wet his lips and whistled twice, with an appreciative chromatic descent at the end of each blast.
The girl in black stopped.
Carr slouched toward her swiftly.
The girl in black turned around. He saw Jane’s white face, framed by that ridiculous blonde hair.
“Hello, kid,” he called saluting her with a wave of his fingers.
“Hello,” she replied. Her heavily lipsticked mouth smiled. She still swayed a little as she waited for him.
Passing Mr. Wilson, Carr reached her a moment before the others did. He did not look at them, but he could sense them closing in behind him and Jane, forming a dark semicircle.
“Doing anything tonight?” he asked Jane.
Her chin described a little movement, not quite a nod. She studied him up and down. “Maybe.”
“They’re faking!” Miss Hackman’s whisper was very faint. It seemed to detach itself from her lips and glide toward his ear like an insect.
“I don’t think so,” he heard Mr. Wilson whisper in reply. “Looks like an ordinary pickup to me.”
Cold prickles rose on Carr’s scalp.
“How about us doing it together?” he asked Jane, pretending there was no whispers, no people behind them, forcing himself to go on playing the part he had chosen.
She seemed to complete a calculation. “Sure,” she said, looking up at him with a suddenly unambiguous smile.
“Pickup!” Miss Hackman’s whisper was faint as before, and as contemptuous. “I never saw anything so amateurish. It’s like a highschool play.”
Carr slid his arm around Jane’s, took her hand. He started with her down the street, toward the brighter lights. He heard the footsteps of the three keeping pace.
“But it’s obviously the girl!” Miss Hackman’s whisper was a trifle louder. “She’s just bleached her hair and trying to pass as a whore.”
As if she feared Carr might turn, Jane’s hand tightened spasmodically on his.
“You can’t be sure,” whispered Mr. Wilson. “Lots of people look alike. We’ve been fooled before. What do you say, Dris?”
“It’s the man all right,” the whispered voice of the handless man responded. “But I followed him for a while tonight and I think he’s okay.”
“But if it’s the same man…?” Miss Hackman objected. “Remember I saw him with the girl at the employment office.”
“Yes,” Mr. Wilson responded, “and we decided that she’d tricked us there and he wasn’t a real accomplice at all. Which should indicate that this can’t be the girl.”
Carr felt the whispers falling about them like the folds of a spiderweb. He said loudly to Jane, “You look swell, kid.”
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she replied.
Carr shifted his arm around her waist, brushing her hips as he did. But his eyes were searching the street ahead. The scene had no changed. The machinery of Nickel Heaven was in full blast. The two men in dark slickers across the street had been joined by two more. The taxi in front of the drugstore was still chugging. Fringing the field of his vision to either side, were blurred bobbing segments of Mr. Wilson’s panama hat and pinstriped paunch and Miss Hackman’s green gabardine shirt and nyloned legs.
“You agree with me about the girl, don’t you Dris?” Mr. Wilson asked.
“I think so.” But this time the handless man’s voice lacked assurance. “But I can’t be sure, because…well I’m not absolutely sure about the man. It’s just possible that he fooled me.”
Miss Hackman leaped at the opportunity. “Exactly. And I think they’re still faking. Let me test them.”
Through the skimpy dress Carr felt Jane shaking.
“Put that away!” Mr. Wilson whispered sharply.
“I will not,” Miss Hackman replied.
They were almost at the corner. They were passing the black convertible. The figure of a bleary-eyed man in a faded blue shirt lurched up onto the curb and came weaving across the sidewalk. Carr steered Jane out of his way.
“Disgusting,” Jane said.
“I’d have taken a crack at him if he’d bumped you.”
“Oh, he’s drunk,” Jane said.
“I’d have taken a crack at him anyway,” Carr asserted, but he was no longer looking at her. The cab driver had come hurrying out of the drugstore.
“Come on, kid,” said Carr suddenly, stepping ahead and pulling Jane after him. “Here’s where we start to travel fast.”
“Oh, swell,” breathed Jane. Her eyes went wide as she looked at the taxi. They hurried toward it.
Beyond the corner, the men in dark slickers left the pawnshop window and headed toward them.
Miss Hackman’s whisper was almost a wail. “They’re getting away. You’ve got to let me test them.”
The cab driver ducked his head to get in. Simultaneously car reached for the door.
“It might be better…” came Dris’ voice.